Volume 56, Number 17 · November 5, 2009
The Charms of Byzantium
By Joseph Connors
Byzantium Rediscovered
by J.B. Bullen
Phaidon, 240 pp., $29.95 (paper)
Hagia Sophia, 1850–1950: Holy Wisdom Modern Monument
by Robert S. Nelson
University of Chicago Press, 278 pp., $125.00
On May 29, 1453, the armies assembled by the young Ottoman sultan Mehmet II breached the land walls of Constantinople, which had resisted assault for a millennium. By the next morning the invaders had arrived at the doors of the imperial church of Hagia Sophia. The sources speak of plunder and rapine, but also of an act of preservation. As the conquering sultan gazed in awe at the vast resplendent interior, he came across a soldier breaking up the marbles of the floor with an axe. 'Wherefore does thou that,' he asked, and the soldier replied, 'For the faith.' Mehmet struck him in anger, saying, 'Ye have got enough by pillaging and enslaving the city, the buildings are mine.'
Review, 3832 words
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